


More Like Strangers

by freelancejouster



Category: GOT7, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Case Fic, Enemies to Lovers, Fairies, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Mystery, Non-Graphic Violence, Rehabilitation, Teacher-Student Relationship, Vampires, graves, in like the absolute broadest sense of the word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:07:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25939402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freelancejouster/pseuds/freelancejouster
Summary: It's Namjoon's job to help vampires acclimate back into society.  And he'd be good at it if this vampire would just let him.
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Kim Namjoon | RM
Comments: 12
Kudos: 62
Collections: Eye of the Galaxy Fic Fest





	More Like Strangers

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [artaemis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/artaemis/pseuds/artaemis) in the [EyeOfTheGalaxyFest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/EyeOfTheGalaxyFest) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> 500 year old vampire im jaebeom (got7) and human/recently turned vampire namjoon. would love to see cold n ruthless jb slowly warming up due to philosophy professor joon (im picturing chidi anagonye from the good place here). go with this wherever you like! nsfw welcome but no extreme kinks please!
> 
> title from Come Back to Earth by Mac Miller. I went with vampire jaebeom, human namjoon, with a pretty light warming up to the professor vibe.  
> hope this is still close to what you were hoping for. If something is historically wrong, please chalk it up to being a supernatural society ^.^
> 
> Content Warning: Jaebeom's a vampire and kind of a dick, he does threaten to kill/bite/change someone. Also, while there's nothing too graphically institutional about the setting, they are in a rehabilitation situation. If either of those things will bother you, please skip this one!

There was something terribly wonderful about the vampires that ended up at Namjoon’s door. They were always a little bit rough around the edges. Some of them even had twigs caught in their hair and dirt smudging at their cheeks from the places they’d been sleeping for the last hundred (or thousand) years. Some of them had those fangs that had grown so long they’d long since poked through the skin of their cheeks and lower lip. Some of them were nearly feral, hissing and stalking around Namjoon’s chambers and oozing that dark, unsettling feeling of the _hunt_ that seemed to be part of their very make up.

Most of them were a little milder. Discombobulated by the way they’d fallen out of society for a hundred years or more. A little odd in their fashion sense or the way that they spoke, sometimes scoffing at the idea that a _human_ like Namjoon might be able to help them.

All sorts of people brought them in. Sure, it was most often other vampires knocking at Namjoon’s door with an expression somewhere in between exasperated and apologetic. They usually only came to Namjoon as a last resort, when acclimating the lost vampire back into society hadn’t worked within their own clan or coven — but most vampires spent time with other vampires primarily, so that made sense.

Next most often were the fairies. They often had something to _do_ with the vampire falling into a sleep that deep in the first place or they’d stumble upon one in a cave or thicket somewhere, half overgrown.

Twice, now, werewolves had shown up, sheepish and curious, knocking with that eager casualness they all seemed to have. “I found this,” they’d say and gesture to the disheveled vampire beside them. “While I was running.” They were always running. “Someone told me you could help.” And Namjoon would assure them that he could and take them off their hands for them. They always seemed so relieved to be rid of the responsibility.

And just once, another human like Namjoon, had shown up with a boxy smile and a coffin he’d found in his attic he hadn’t even known he’d had until the vampire had woken up and started slamming his body into the wood that contained him. That one hadn’t needed nearly as much rehabilitation as some of the others after they’d emptied his pockets of cursed objects, and Namjoon still met Taehyung and Seokjin for dinner every few months, careful to schedule his visits away from Seokjin’s feeding times and his persuasive gaze.

This one was brought in by a fairy.

“Jackson,” the fairy had told him once to call him, not the last time he’d shown up in Namjoon’s office with a vampire in tow and a crooked smile full of unnaturally square teeth, but the time before that. He was very good at finding vampires, or so he claimed. Namjoon had a suspicion he liked looking for them.

This vampire was a little scruffy around the edges, hair in a disarray, grime caked into it like it had been that way for awhile. He was pretty underneath the dust of himself; vampires didn’t _age_ really, though some looked much rougher than others. A piece of metal was pierced into his cheek and he supposed it could have been on purpose, but it was hard to tell. His pants were torn at the knee, like he'd had some trouble either before or after he’d fallen asleep; his clothing was _old_ , reminiscent of the Regency era or maybe the Victorian, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Sometimes they just liked to dress old.

“Where did you find this one?” Namjoon asked, wading through the documentation paperwork with his practiced pen. He checked _no_ for most of the dangerous things, he didn’t look like he had anything contagious, he seemed to be able to walk on his own, he hadn’t said much yet but was decisively capable of speech. He didn’t seem to be decaying or under the impression he was anything other than a vampire who had woken up after a very long nap.

“In a sort of meadow,” Jackson said. He was giving off the impression that he was perusing the shelves of the office, snooping casually, but Namjoon still felt like he was peering into him somehow.

“A sort of meadow,” Namjoon repeated, pen hovering. “You can be any more specific? There are lots of meadows.”

“I don’t think it was fairies, don’t worry.” He waved off Namjoon’s worry as though it were a physical thing. “It was near Cloverdale, but I think he was just _there_ , you know? Like maybe from before the fairies moved in. I actually didn’t find this one, a buddy did, but she knew I knew you and asked if I would take him.”

“You didn’t find him?” Namjoon repeated, crossing Jackson’s name out to move it to a more appropriate line.

“No, but I was told he was half-buried. Or, rather, half-uncovered. She hit something hard while digging and it ended up being this vampire.”

“She was digging.” Namjoon’s eyebrows were tented now, concern and confusion.

“Apparently she found a bit of parchment telling her there was treasure in the meadow outside of Cloverdale; dug for treasure, found the vampire.”

“So who found him exactly?” he asked, writing down “meadow near Cloverdale” as the location.

“Wheein,” Jackson told him, pulling a tome off Namjoon’s shelf, seemingly at random. Namjoon didn’t believe for a minute that it was actually random. He wondered briefly what Jackson stood to learn from a book of local morbid folktales and then promptly decided that he’d rather not know. “You’ve met her. I brought her here once, I think. The second or third time maybe?”

Namjoon remembered her vaguely, the dimples high in her cheeks, the blue hair and sarcastic grin. Jackson had found something particularly feral and she’d stood just out of biting distance, grinning and chastising it, almost as though to egg it on. She hadn’t been scared in the slightest, but maybe that was just a fairy trait Namjoon wasn’t yet aware of. Jackson never seemed particularly scared either.

This vampire didn’t look particularly scary. The sockets of his eyes were that dark, vampire red, that they’d get sometimes when they were starving, but he just looked tired, like he might fall back asleep at any second. Namjoon watched as he pushed some of his overlong hair off of his forehead and looked around forlornly, as though he’d lost something. Or maybe he was looking for somewhere to sit down. Namjoon watched as he focused on the wall and then away again; he seemed aware that he was dirty and didn’t lean on it. Curious.

“So, Wheein found the vampire,” Namjoon confirmed, writing it on the form. He filled out the next couple lines as well, because he knew Jackson wouldn’t know the answers. Age indeterminate, but likely over 300 years old based on his clothing.

“Jaebeom,” the vampire said, suddenly, as if he’d remembered.

“What?” Namjoon asked him, peering at him over his glasses.

“The vampire,” he said with a little wobbly nod. He pointed to himself. “Jaebeom,” he said again.

Jackson’s eyebrows were raised, but he didn’t say anything, just continued to flick through the book of folktales like he was looking for something.

“Alright,” Namjoon said. He brought his pen to the top of the page, and wrote _Jaebeom_ on the Name line of the form. “Jaebeom.”

—

Jackson conned Namjoon out of a lunch before returning back to whatever it was that Jackson did when he wasn’t vampire hunting. Namjoon had a feeling it had something to do with the entertainment industry, he looked maddeningly familiar, but then again that was a decent guess for most fairies.

He sent Jaebeom off with Youngjae to get showered and fed a carefully controlled portion of blood, so that when he returned, Namjoon could interview him properly.

It was often amazing, the sort of transformation these lost vampires underwent with a decent scrubbing and some nourishment. A good fraction of them didn’t need most of Namjoon’s services at all anymore, just a little help getting their bearings and finding their clans or covens or next of kin. 

Jaebeom wasn’t one of the lucky ones, he wasn’t quite all the way there as he wobbled to chaise against the back wall of Namjoon’s office where he’d been directed to sit. His hair hung a little in his face, soft and not quite dry. The skin around his eyes was not so dreadfully red anymore, though still visibly more flushed than the rest of his face. He’d opted for fresh clothes, but the sweatpants and tee shirt he’d chosen were slightly oversized, cuffs hanging past his hands. Namjoon would have to remember to ask Youngjae about stock levels the next time they had a lull. He’d feel a little bad if there wasn’t a better fitting option around.

“Welcome,” Namjoon said, trying his best to give off a warm and comforting energy. He was usually pretty good at it, but even after all this time he was a little awkward at the first meeting. It was so difficult to tell _how_ exactly they expected to be interacted with. Some of the vampires seemed to be under the impression that humans were beneath them in some way. Others, from particularly persecuted areas, were deeply paranoid of Namjoon in general, disbelieving that he was there to help and the first few days were often spent attempting to convince them that he was not just not going to turn them in somewhere, but actively trying to help set them up in a way that was most appropriate for them. “Feeling any better?”

Jaebeom nodded. He was gaunt, but not as gaunt as some. Pale, but not as pale as some. Had a stare like he could see through things, but not unkindly so just — old. Wise, maybe. But maybe Namjoon was reading too much into him. “A little,” he said, words carefully chosen. Namjoon caught a bit of an accent, but he wasn’t sure from where.

“Do you have any questions before I get started?” Namjoon asked. “Do you need anything?”

“It’s — “ Jaebeom started, pouty mouth curving into an effortless frown. He scratched absently at the piercing beneath his eye. As much as it looked a bit like it hurt, it almost suited him, Namjoon decided. “Different.”

“Different?” Namjoon asked.

“Here,” he said, glancing around the room as he did so. Namjoon’s office was very little like the front room where they took vampires in initially. Where that room was stark and white and full of stainless steel and no places to sit, nearly medicinal because it had to be with its brief array of Namjoon’s least confidential books arranged for perusing, and a floor that could be sprayed down if needed, the office was nearly the opposite. He’d filled it as much as he felt appropriate with things that felt much more homey. His desk was a dark wood, his bookshelves were full and lined the longer of his walls, he’d brought in a chaise and a rug and a half dozen fake plants (and one real spider plant on his desk with one new leaf that he was very excited about) and bought with company funds a pair of almost as comfortable chairs. It felt like an office more or less, but if you weren’t paying attention it didn’t _have_ to.

“This room?” Namjoon asked, frowning slightly. He wasn’t sure what he was getting at.

“No.” The vampire shook his head, almost delicately, like he wasn’t entirely sure he had the full use of his muscles just yet. “The world.” He paused for another moment, pursing his lips carefully. “It’s changed.”

Namjoon nodded. That was almost definitely true. Even the vampires who had only been asleep a _little_ too long, five years or so, they felt that the world had changed. Jaebeom seemed to have been asleep much longer than that. “It has. It can be difficult to process, but that’s part of why you’re here.” Namjoon hoped his smile was reassuring. “What year was it when you fell asleep, do you remember?”

There was a faraway look in Jaebeom’s eyes as he considered. Sometimes they didn’t remember at all. Sometimes they remembered distinctly. Sometimes they caught pieces of the world while they were sleeping and woke up with all sorts of strange, cobbled slang. Jaebeom didn’t seem to fit any of those categories.

“Twenties,” Jaebeom said, tilting his head a little.

Namjoon sucked a bit of air in between his teeth. “Was it the 1920s, or —”

“Oh,” Jaebeom said, eyes widening a little. “No, the 1820s. It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?”

Namjoon nodded and made a note on Jaebeom’s paperwork. “Nearly two hundred years have gone by.” Namjoon wasn’t particularly surprised; the clothing Jaebeom had arrived in had looked about right for the time period, the carefully buttoned waistcoat with the tailcoat worn over it. It had been hard to tell color, as more or less everything about him had been brown with dirt, but the fabrics had certainly _looked_ rich, like they would have been in that era. He sat a bit like he was from the era as well, even now in sweats he sat with his shoulders back, posture perfect on Namjoon’s slouchy chaise.

Namjoon felt himself sit up straighter thinking about it, suddenly horribly aware of how terrible his own posture was. Dug the edge of his clipboard carefully into his legs.

“Oh,” Jaebeom said, again. Gave a grimace of a smile, like he wasn’t sure how to react appropriately and remain polite. “Well, that’s — it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Yes and no,” Namjoon told him with a little nod. “We get all sorts of vampires here. We had one a few months ago who had been asleep for over a thousand years. We never figured out specifically what happened to him, but we think it had something to do with a very powerful witch. Maybe a famous one.”

Jaebeom nodded a little, like he was paying careful attention, but didn’t feel much like actually responding. 

“But, you’re right that two hundred years is a long time. It’s longer than most and the learning curve is going to be difficult.”

“Learning curve?” Jaebeom asked with a little scoff.

“Yes,” Namjoon repeated. “Getting used to new technologies and things. That’s part of the process here, introducing you to the world and helping you reintegrate with society if you’d like to. Of course, some vampires mostly spent time with their covens or clans previously, and we do what we can to recreate that set up for those who are interested in that route instead.”

Namjoon paused to allow Jaebeom to respond. He hadn’t _really_ asked a question, but the scoff had made Namjoon guess that he’d want to be integrated into a clan somewhere rather than the human world.

Jaebeom sat there, still for a long moment, that unnatural stillness of a thing that doesn’t need to breathe but can, that doesn’t need to blink but does, whose heart doesn’t beat and who doesn’t feel fatigue. Namjoon watched as he folded his hands carefully in his lap. Prim, almost, in his body language.

Jaebeom’s expression was a tight little frown. “I never was much one for clans.”

“Sure,” Namjoon said, scribbling the answer down carefully. “Yes, of course. We can do that for you.”

“Can you?” Jaebeom asked, eyes flicking to Namjoon, almost as if seeing him for the first time. He didn’t look particularly impressed. It wasn’t the first time, but there was still a hardness to it that had him willing himself not to shrink backwards. They could do that, some of them, make themselves feel _dangerous_ with just their gaze. Make themselves feel _other_. “How kind of you.”

“Sure,” Namjoon found himself agreeing, something tightening in his chest. _Fear_. “Kind.” 

—

The wavering, disorientated Jaebeom was gone after the first day, replaced with that calculating and stubborn man who’d looked at him so sharply that he’d wanted to curl up in a ball. Namjoon had hoped it would be a temporary mood, something that would fade as he got his bearings, but this crueler Jaebeom seemed to be his actual personality, which, to put it mildly, was incredibly difficult to work with.

As it was, they pressed on anyway, because they had to. It was Namjoon’s job.

They’d had a conversation during the second session about how Jaebeom wanted to handle this.

“If you’re not interested in rejoining a clan, we should pursue something else,” Namjoon told him. He paused for a moment, giving space for Jaebeom to ask about the options if he wanted to, but he just regarded Namjoon with that cold, nearly regal stare. Namjoon pressed his lips together. “We can explore whatever path might work best for you. Nearly as many vampires end up living in a fairy or human neighborhood, others prefer to find more or a lair, but I —”

“I’m not interested in _your_ help with my life planning,” Jaebeom said with a frown. “As far as I’m concerned, I need to be here to recuperate, and then I can be on my way.”

“Oh,” Namjoon said. That was a terrible idea. “That’s —”

“I am not interested in joining any sort of community anywhere, when it’s time for me to leave, I will find myself a space by myself somewhere, but neither you nor I will benefit from pretending that the path forward is to go live with the fairies or in a human neighborhood somewhere. I’m not interested in it.”

“Your path forward cannot be just _I’ll just leave and figure it out_ ,” Namjoon said.

Jaebeom shrugged one careful shoulder and looked indifferent to Namjoon. “It’s what I was doing before; it’s how I feel most comfortable.”

Namjoon tried very hard for a moment to discern if that was true. He wished sometimes that he had a little bit of _something_ in him, so that he could tell when vampires were lying. He couldn’t imagine that it was, but Jaebeom looked so nonchalant when he said it, that Namjoon wasn’t sure how to proceed.

He pressed his lips together and eventually tried, “Even if you’re not particularly interested in participating in society, part of what this program can do is help you find suitable housing, access any funds you may have banked at one point or another, and locate a job if you’re interested in one. Perhaps, even … there’s a cottage of sorts outside of town, I don’t doubt that it could be modified to be —”

“I am not interested in living in a _human_ town,” Jaebeom said, the way he said _human_ held in his mouth like he was calling them something much worse. Namjoon, he — he knew it wasn’t personal, that there were great divides between vampires and humans in parts of the world, but he wasn’t sure he’d spent this much time with a vampire before realizing that they thought so little of him.

“Oh,” Namjoon said, for lack of anything else to say. He wasn’t good at hiding his emotions, but he felt a little bit weird about showing Jaebeom that his feelings were hurt. He took a short second to collect himself. “Of course, I didn’t realize,” he said, to fill the silence more than anything.

Jaebeom just frowned that careful, cold frown and didn’t say anything.

Namjoon asked him all the regular questions across the next few sessions, like _did he remember turning_ — yes, about 300 years before he’d fallen asleep — and _where had he been turned_ — some court or other, one of the many teeming with vampires at the time — and _how old had he been_ — nearly 30.

 _Mark Tuan_ was the first name he got out of Jaebeom for vampire contacts.

If the vampires remembered people (they didn’t always) they usually rattled off a list. Sometimes it was short. Sometimes, if they’d been part of a large clan or one of those polyamorous covens, the list was very very long and Namjoon would have to add one or several additional pages to the document to be able to keep track of all the vampires they wanted to track down.

Vampires weren’t like humans. Once they’d been turned, if they took care of themselves they more or less didn’t age any longer. If a vampire exposed himself to harmful things (tanning, Italian food, excessive Catholic imagery), then they’d age eventually, though much slower; if they exposed themselves to silver or holy water they’d prove to be still _mortal_ in the killable sense of the word. The mind might start to go after a thousand years or so, but it could be treated if caught soon enough in similar ways as dementia or small, repeated doses of the right magic. There was every chance that a good percentage of one's previous acquaintances might still be around and kicking and better at rehabilitating a vampire than a selection of well-meaning and adequately-funded humans.

Pulling names from Jaebeom was like pulling teeth. Mark was dropped on accident in an anecdote he spun to try and distract Namjoon from the task at hand. And then there was _Min Yoongi_ , told on purpose as a contact who might be around and interested in reconnection, though he mentioned that there was something of a rift between them in — well, not _recent_ years, but a few years before Jaebeom had fallen asleep.

And then, just before Namjoon was about to dismiss him back to the dormitory, there came a name that Namjoon was already very much familiar with.

“Do you mind if I ask how the rift came about?” Namjoon asked, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“Does it much matter to you?” Jaebeom asked, that drawl again, laced in something like polite curiosity masking derision.

“Learning about the rift?” Namjoon asked. “It’s hard to tell, it’s easiest to rehabilitate if we have as much —”

“No, does it much matter to you if I mind?”

Namjoon met his eyes; dangerous, he knew, but likely as important to the process as anything else. Vampires often found humans annoying, especially those who were particularly old or had spent most of their time in the company of vampires who were particularly old. It stood to reason, Namjoon had surmised — humans didn’t live for anywhere near as long as them, they were generally more nosy and asking more questions. They had a thing for bureaucracy that vampire-culture didn’t have any trace of.

Those vampires, the vampires that found humans annoying, weren’t unusual, but that wasn’t what Namjoon was trying to see when he met Jaebeom’s eyes. He didn’t much mind if he found him annoying, plenty of people he didn’t know through work found him plenty annoying. No, he was looking for those other emotions vampires seemed to so often aim towards humans; hatred, hunger, and/or complete dismissal.

He didn’t see annoyance in Jaebeom’s eyes, but he also didn’t see anything else, just that cold stare — distant and disinterested.

Somehow that chilled Namjoon’s blood even worse than finding outright malice there.

“Yes,” Namjoon answered. “Of course it does.”

Jaebeom’s gaze didn’t waver, just held for a long moment before he gave one more name. This one, one that Namjoon was already distinctly familiar with. “The rift came about because of Kim Seokjin. Maybe you could ask him.”

—

Neither Mark Tuan nor Min Yoongi came up in his vampire directory, which was just his luck, so he dialed Taehyung at work, figuring it was safer than calling upon Seokjin during his feeding week.

“Thank you for calling the Supernatural Sex Hotline, where we connect you to the creature of your dreams. Please be aware that the Supernatural Sex Hotline is in no way legally responsible for any curses, spells, or other magical or non-magical manipulations that may be conducted during the course of your phone call. If you’d like more information about our legal policy, please let me know. If, understanding that, welcome! Our special of the day is a 20% off of all pre-established lamia rates; the snake-girl of your dreams might be a phone call away. How may I direct your call?”

“Hey Taehyung, it’s me,” Namjoon said. He’d returned to his apartment after ensuring Jaebeom didn’t need anything else from him and made a small dinner of various half-wilted vegetables in his fridge served over pasta.

Taehyung’s phone voice didn’t waver, low and familiar, while still sounding professionally aloof. Namjoon had been with him while he chose the voice; had helped him walk through a dozen iterations before finding one that still sounded sexy but wasn’t murder on his vocal chords. “Thank you for being a repeat caller, but I’m afraid I’m not able to tell who _me_ is at the moment. Do you mind reintroducing yourself, handsome, so I can help you find what you’re looking for?”

Namjoon sighed. “It’s Namjoon, Taehyung.”

“Oh!” There was a sigh and Namjoon could practically see him slipping out of his phone persona and back into Regular Taehyung. There was slouching involved and a voice a half an octave higher than it had been just a moment ago. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Is there really a lamia deal of the day? That seems so niche?” Namjoon wasn’t sure that he’d met more than a half-dozen lamia total in his life; he was also at least 70% sure that Taehyung’s job only had one lamia in their employ.

“Hyungwon and Moonbyul asked if we could do it; I guess she’s getting cut off and is hoping to knock out a chunk of her student loans if she can.”

“Isn’t Hyungwon a naga? And a boy?”

“Yeah, the demand isn’t high so I’m just doing it when Moonbyul isn’t already on a call, and if they’re like _well, snake-girls aren’t my deal because, instead, what if they were snake-boys_ , I can then be like, you’re in luck my friend!”

Namjoon did not respond. He did not have any thoughts about Taehyung’s specifically horny customers worth sharing and he certainly didn’t have any about lying to them. Taehyung waited precisely long enough to determine that and then continued, “I’m a philanthropist, if you think about it.”

“I wish I didn’t have to,” Namjoon said with a chuckle.

“What do you need?” Taehyung asked. Namjoon could practically hear the grin in his voice.

“Jackson brought me a new vampire today. He’s been asleep for like 200 years and is a little — well, I’d call it aggressive, but he might just not care for humans.” Namjoon wished he still had a corded phone; he had a distinct feeling that he should be twirling the cord around his fingers over and over again. “He seems to be a bit of a loner from what I can tell, so he might not have spent very much time around humans either, but he, well …”

“That’s got to be rough, 200 years just missing like that,” Taehyung said. “Any idea how old he was when he fell asleep?”

“Not yet, and from where Jackson found him it was probably fairies or witches who put him to sleep, rather than an accident. Over by Cloverdale, you know?”

“Oh, right, you’ve had more than one vampire come out of that meadow.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon said. He hadn’t thought about it too much, but Taehyung was right. It wasn’t just that _near Cloverdale_ seemed to come up in a good section of the vampires he was brought, but he could think of at least 3 others who might have come from the same meadow Wheein had apparently found Jaebeom in. He fished a piece of scrap paper off of his coffee table and wrote down a note to ask Jimin about the meadow; he was a fairy afterall, maybe he knew something more than Jackson had been willing to tell him. “Yeah, maybe something happened there, that I need to look into. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Taehyung said. Namjoon could hear his grin. “You said he’s a loner? Is he being like, overly aggressive or is it —”

“No, not exactly. There’s definitely some standoffishness, but I don’t think I’m in any immediate danger. He doesn’t seem to want to hurt me, as much as he just doesn’t care for my presence.

“Well, that’s good, at least.”

“Yeah,” Namjoon said, letting himself slouch down into the copious amounts of pillows on his couch. “Yeah, it could be worse, but I swear, it was like pulling teeth to try and get him to give me any contacts that might be able to help me.”

“Like he was hiding something?” Taehyung sounded excited almost. He loved intrigue.

“No. It was a little like he didn’t trust me, but it was more like he just didn’t have any,” Namjoon said. He picked at a loose thread on one of his pillows for something to do with his hands. “But he — well, one of the contacts he did give me was Seokjin.”

“Oh!” Taehyung said. “My Seokjin?”

“Your Seokjin,” Namjoon confirmed. He pressed his lips together. “He doesn’t seem to like him very much, so it might not even be worth getting the two of them in contact, but I’ve never heard of either the other two vampires he mentioned and it —”

“It might be your only option,” Taehyung finished for him. “I get it; what do you need me to do?”

“Call me the day after he feeds next?” Namjoon asked. “He’s least dangerous then, and he’s always a little overly familiar those couple days after, maybe I can figure out how they know each other before pairing them up, if this is my option.”

“Yeah, I’ll have to talk to him first,” Taehyung noted. Namjoon wasn’t sure he really understood their relationship properly, but was always a little _surprised_ at how frequently Taehyung was conscientious of Seokjin’s blood-related moods. He supposed it might be a little like taking advantage of him otherwise, but it was also — well, Seokjin was dangerous even at the best of times. It was more or less just working around that to most people, but not to Taehyung. Taehyung always made sure to _ask_ for things Namjoon saw most people just take. It was sweet, in a way, though Namjoon wasn’t entirely sure what Taehyung was getting out of the arrangement. “But, it’s probably fine. He likes you, and he likes that you’re scared of him, so he’s probably happy to accommodate your request.”

“Great,” Namjoon said. He meant it. Even if he was scared of Seokjin, he was fond of him. “I’ll hear from you in a few days then.”

“You could hear from me sooner if you wanted to stay on the line and actually pay me for my services,” Taehyung said. There was that grin in his voice again. Cheeky.

“No, but I appreciate the offer,” Namjoon said.

“You always do.”

—

They were in his office again, Jaebeom sat primly on the chaise, Namjoon in the chair across from him, clipboard in his lap. Meeting like this wasn’t a habit just yet, but it was starting to feel like one.

They’d had sessions where Namjoon had asked follow up questions about his mentioned acquaintances, and learned only that none of them had turned him and that Jaebeom used to date the one named Mark Tuan and it had ended in such a way that Jaebeom no longer found the situation polite to talk about.

Namjoon had tried to tell him that telling him these things was part of the process and he wasn’t particularly hung up about politeness, but he was pretty sure that that had offended the vampire, if it had any persuasiveness to it whatsoever.

In fact, that seemed to be a thing they encountered not-infrequently. Namjoon would mention something or express something and Jaebeom would stare at him somewhere between coldly and expressionlessly, but in a way that felt particularly like he was offended or could not believe that Namjoon would speak to him in such a way. He seemed to find the whole process distasteful and kept attempting to treat the questions like some sort of riddle instead of a process, like if he could answer them “correctly” he might be rid of them.

This wasn’t the first time something like that had happened, Namjoon had worked with lots of vampires and many of them had pretty formal guidelines from whatever society they had last been in about what was and was not polite, but usually they seemed a _little_ more willing to work with Namjoon to find a middle ground. Jaebeom just felt … rigid was the most accurate word. It didn’t feel kind or even useful, really, to say it, but it was hard not to think it as he sat with perfect posture and a passive expression as Namjoon continued to ask him questions.

“Can you tell me anything more about what you remember from the day you fell asleep?”

“I certainly could,” Jaebeom answered him, and grew silent again, expression cold.

“Will you?” Namjoon prodded.

“If you think it’s terribly necessary, though I can’t quite figure out why it would be important in any way to you,” Jaebeom answered. His expression grew ever so slightly more annoyed. A nearly imperceptible percentage, but it was there. Namjoon wasn’t sure if he could remember another vampire who was so politely hostile towards him. It was unusual and he didn’t care for it. “I was walking out in the meadows. I wasn’t in an area I was particularly familiar with, but it was beautiful. Overgrown in such a way that it seemed almost on purpose. You know the sorts of places, ivy covering everything, thick copses of flowers in pink and purple and yellow, a fallen log half covered in mushrooms and half covered in moss.”

“It was beautiful, really,” he continued, staring off somewhere past Namjoon. “Maybe I should’ve realized that it was _too_ perfect, you know? In the way that good things can’t last and beautiful things are usually a trap.” He almost looked sad. Namjoon wasn’t sure which pieces of this he could write down and have it make any kind of sense. He certainly didn’t have these experiences, but Jaebeom seemed to think they were universal.

“It didn’t,” he said. Angry. “Last. Someone came out of the shadows that I hadn’t even realized were there; someone with a smile that looked _dangerous_ in ways that I wasn’t. And then I was asleep.”

 _Dangerous in ways that I wasn’t_ Namjoon wrote dutifully down on his clipboard.

He wasn’t sure how he’d even begin to form follow up questions about the interaction. So he didn’t. Jaebeom didn’t seem surprised.

“You mentioned that you weren’t familiar with the area, do you remember why you were there?”

“I can’t remember,” Jaebeom said. It felt like a lie, but he looked Namjoon in the eye like it was a challenge. _Call him on it_ some terrible little part of Namjoon’s mind told him.

“But you remember the flowers?” Namjoon asked.

Jaebeom’s frown became more real than it had been; like previously he’d been implying at his distaste for the questioning, but now he wanted Namjoon to see it on purpose. “Yes,” he said.

“Seems odd.”

“Does it? Does it seem odd?” Jaebeom asked, combative. Namjoon suddenly worried if the instinct to prod further had steered him into something terrible. Something that would have better been avoided. As carefully as he could, he opened his chat with Youngjae on his laptop and typed _urgemt come office_ and hoped that he wasn’t doing rounds without his phone. “What I think should seem more odd to you is that I’m here at all; what, I just dropped out of my life and now I’ve woken up and because some fairy brought me here, I’m supposed to entertain some terrible little inquisitive human’s endless strings of questions?”

Namjoon didn’t have an answer for him. He’d already told him that he was here to help and it didn’t seem to do any good; it didn’t seem like repeating that information would solve anything. 

Jaebeom didn’t look like he expected an answer anyway. He pressed forward. “That you think you have any control in this is absolutely ludicrous,” Jaebeom spat. “I could bite and drain you faster than you could hope to react with your childish human instincts.”

“You wouldn’t,” Namjoon managed.

“I could turn you,” Jaebeom continued, unphased and full of venom, but also more than that. He seemed to delight in this, this outpouring of anger. Namjoon had never really looked at his teeth before; they weren’t that overlong sort of fang poking over his lip, but as he threatened Namjoon they seemed to catch the light, shiny and dangerous. “I could make you that _thing_ you pretend to be an expert about; teach you how to despise what you once were just as much as I do.” Namjoon stared at the piercing in his cheek and willed himself not to pull back or to cry. Jaebeom moved closer, dragged a nail along Namjoon’s cheek. “You’re going to need to remember this.”

“I will,” Namjoon told him. His voice only shook a little. “B-but I need you to know that this — this _threat_ isn’t going to make me stop trying to help you.”

Jaebeom looked almost sarcastically unimpressed. Youngjae opened the door to the office, silver-radiating staff held aloft in his hand to subdue Jaebeom and Namjoon wasn’t sure if he’d ever been so relieved to see anyone. Jaebeom pulled back and followed Youngjae out, almost meekly compared to how he’d just been behaving.

“It’s supposed to,” he said on his way out, but it almost sounded — defeated.

—

Seven years ago, during Namjoon’s fourth week at his shiny new vampire rehabilitation job, he was bitten by a vampire.

He was still getting the hang of the job and had confused which of the three current tenants he’d have to wear additional protective gear with and just stuck his hand right into their quarters with no hesitation whatsoever. The vampire, feral, had of course jumped at the chance to bite Namjoon’s uncovered skin and had clamped right onto him, causing various levels of fear and pain and adrenaline.

Namjoon had done the only thing he could think to do and had punched him in the ear. It hadn’t done much besides causing him to bite down harder, and it wasn’t until his boss had come running down the hallway with the silver-infused anti-vampire mist that they used at the time and sprayed the vampire quite thoroughly that he had been released.

Nothing _happened_ of course; hand meat is, as it turns out, terrible at spreading vampire venom around the body. He was left with a nasty bite that he had to put a bit of tincture on twice a day for a week, but that was about it.

He’d come back to work every day afterwards, not really any more afraid than he had been before the incident, though with a slightly more careful eye towards his charts. He hadn’t even thought twice about returning; it wasn’t the vampire’s fault that Namjoon had stuck his hand into their quarters.

Fighting with Jaebeom wasn’t like that; fighting with Jaebeom made Namjoon hesitate, made him dread walking out the door of his apartment and going to work altogether.

He stood carefully at his bathroom sink the next morning and looked into the toothpaste-flecked mirror for a long time, like if he observed himself for long enough he’d figure out a way to settle the dread in his stomach. It wasn’t fair, he thought, as he looked himself carefully in the eye. It wasn’t fair that he was stuck with a vampire who not only didn’t seem to like humans, but one who didn’t seem to like Namjoon specifically.

But he — well, he had no place else to go. Not really.

If he wanted to do the necessary paperwork, he could probably find another institute that would take Jaebeom off of his hands. He’d done that twice before, once with a vampire who was so hateful of men that she wouldn’t do anything but scream and cry and fight whenever any of them tried to interact with her, and another where he’d been insistent that Namjoon looked exactly like a man he’d once been in love with, despite that being sometime in the 1450s and Namjoon being all of 25 at the time.

He could write Jaebeom off as a lost cause, but “actively hostile to me in particular” wasn’t a very convincing argument to send him off, not in the grand scheme of things. And besides, Namjoon felt that he might — owe him in some way anyway. He’d feel indescribably guilty if he sent him off because he was afraid of him.

He frowned at himself in the mirror, trying to decide if he could deal with guilt and also if he needed to do something different with his hair, and got a text from Taehyung.

 _Seokjin fed yesterday_ it said when he pulled it out of his pants pocket, but Namjoon could see that he was still typing. _want to come over for dinner?_

 _Sure, that sounds nice_ , Namjoon sent, almost certain he had the time for it.

 _Did you ever find anything more out about the meadow?_ came a third text.

 _No, but I’m looking into it today_ , Namjoon sent back. He’d forgotten entirely in the process of trying to suss out exactly what sort of vampire Jaebeom was and what sort of rehabilitation he needed that he was supposed to be also investigating what exactly had put him to sleep.

It wasn’t a step he needed to do all of the time; most of the time it didn’t matter that a witch had put a random vampire to sleep for creeping her out too forcefully or that a vampire had wandered into a fairy ring and fallen asleep. Those sorts of things happened, and often enough that Namjoon would have still been employed if those were the only reasons vampires fell asleep.

But this time, between the mention of treasure and the notion that Jaebeom _might_ be part of a pattern of some kind — that certainly called for additional investigation if nothing else.

Namjoon sighed and resolved to not call in sick.

 _You forgot_ , came Taehyung’s text.

 _I didn’t forget_ , Namjoon lied.

 _You forgot!_ , came the last text, and Namjoon could almost picture Taehyung. Grinning.

Namjoon started searching through files as soon as he got to his office. All of their intake work was still done on hard copies and there were endless file cabinets in storage closets filled with these intakes, copies of notes, and other hard records. However, there had been a big push from above to digitize in the last few years, so now it was part of Youngjae and Jimin’s jobs to enter the records into the system so that they were more easily searchable and easier to report on.

That was wonderfully useful for Namjoon, so instead of spending days combing through files on files trying to quickly sift through their content, he could type in a set of keywords — Cloverdale and/or Meadow and/or Fairy, sorted by relevance — and have a much, much more manageable stack to sort through. He’d still need to do some reading of course, Namjoon didn’t imagine that every record that mentioned Cloverdale, a meadow, and a fairy in any capacity would necessarily be what he was looking for, just as he was pretty sure that if there _was_ a pattern here that there might be a few examples of it with only one or two of the keywords included in their content.

He opened the first record in the stack, and was proven right immediately. The record was an assessment for a vampire from the late '90s who had been found frozen and asleep in a mountain pass but was planning on rejoining his friends who were fairies who lived in a cottage near the meadow outside of Cloverdale.

He closed the record with a click and was about to move onto the next one when he heard a telltale set of boots on the tile of the hallway.

“Jimin?” he called, peering around his computer.

The fairy poked his head around the corner, pink hair fluffy and artfully disheveled like it always was. He was in his regular Jimin uniform of an oversized sweater, pants that may as well have been painted on, and boots with a heel that might have been unreasonable for casual wear on anyone else. He always looked a little bit undone, like he’d dressed from _something_ in a hurry, but that was part of his charm. He also, right this moment, looked a little overly tired, but Namjoon supposed the night shift had that effect even on fairies.

“Yes boss?” Jimin asked, smiling at him politely.

“Have you ever heard of a treasure in the meadow outside of Cloverdale? Or noticed outside of this job that there seem to be an inordinate number of vampires pulled out of that area?”

Jimin thought for a moment, throwing himself into the chaise. He had no posture to speak of, but maybe that was just a fairy trait. Namjoon couldn’t picture Jackson sitting up straight either.

“No, I don’t think I’ve heard anything about a treasure,” Jimin said with a shake of his head. He frowned, thinking. Fairies were extremely expressive. “It might just have been my family, but it — ah, it’s probably nothing. You know. Family legend or whatever, but my great aunt, she was always a little weird about the meadow,” he shrugged a shoulder, tilting his head to one side like he was thinking. “Superstitious almost, she didn’t want us playing over that way at night.”

“I mean,” Namjoon started, not sure how helpful that was. “I don’t think my relatives would have been a fan of me playing in a field at night as a child either.”

Jimin shook his head. “That’s because you’re a human. Fairy kids basically only play outside at night, but not — not there.”

Namjoon made a note. Maybe there was something to this after all.

—

“Thank you for the invitation,” Namjoon said. He was hovering in the entryway to Taehyung and Seokjin’s frankly colossal apartment after having toed off his shoes. There was something about the space that _loomed_ , all the surfaces ornate and white and sweeping away from his line of sight.

Maybe it was what Seokjin was used to, the thirty foot ceilings and expansive stretches of empty space, from his days in someone or other’s court, but Namjoon still wasn’t sure why he’d felt the need to emulate the feeling _here_ much less if he, personally, would ever get used to the feeling that he was stepping into a museum or a church or a castle or a mausoleum of some kind when the door closed behind him. Maybe that was part of the point of it for Seokjin, so no one else could be quite as comfortable as he was in the space.

And comfortable he was.

Namjoon followed Taehyung into the space that could most accurately be described as their living room, though it seemed far too grand for the term especially compared to Namjoon’s with its thrift store coffee table and ersatz collection of plants and books shoved into every space he could find in the place. No, this was a different animal entirely, coated in a rug that he knew cost more than a month’s rent, with couches and poufs in every spindly custom-creation of gold and leather and velvet and fur that anyone could imagine.

Seokjin was draped across the couch directly in line with the doorway, so that when Namjoon entered the room _he_ was the first thing he’d see. Seokjin with his perfect face and his playful energy had always been a fan of the theater of a thing, so it wasn’t _surprising_ though it was certainly startling.

“So glad you could join us,” Seokjin said, carefully placing his drink on a tiny side table, likely specifically for holding wine glasses, and untucking his legs from behind him. He stood in a fluid motion that made Namjoon dizzy, gliding across the room to greet him.

“Happy to be here,” Namjoon managed, returning his hug carefully. Vampires were so _solid_ , it was a little like hugging a sizable chunk of marble, but it wasn’t completely unpleasant.

“TaeTae has told me you have a new vampire who’s mentioned me,” Seokjin said, leading Namjoon into the room and towards the bar cart where a drink was already waiting for him. Namjoon sniffed it before taking a sip, it was a little strange but not _too_ startling, he was sure he’d had more magical tasting things and lived.

This was tame for Seokjin, the languid pageantry, the blunt subject announcement; Namjoon was thankful again that he’d remembered to visit after a feed instead of before. He always had the feeling that Seokjin was looking _into_ him somehow, like he was observing the pieces of his soul and considering which bits of sinew he could chew through to demolish him most efficiently.

But maybe Namjoon was just imagining things.

“Yes,” Namjoon said with a little nod. He perched himself carefully on the edge of something small and delicate and covered in fur that might have been meant to be a chair. “He’s only mentioned you and a couple other names. I was wondering if you remembered him.”

“I’ve met lots of vampires in my life,” Seokjin said with a vicious smile, flicking his eyes over to where Taehyung was sat as if to share the joke with him, though he was wholly not paying attention, one leg tossed over the arm of a chair. “But I also have a pretty good memory.”

“His name is Im Jaebeom,” Namjoon said.

“Oh,” Seokjin said, letting understanding paint his features. “Yes, I do know Jaebeom.”

“And?” Namjoon asked, swirling his drink a little. There was something floating in it but it seemed to be intentional. “What happened there?”

“Well, I liked him quite a lot for a while,” Seokjin said, voice contemplative. He threw an embarrassed smile. “But, after we were through I accidentally stole his mate, and, you know, I don’t think he ever forgave me for that.”

His voice was pitched as though it couldn’t be helped, but Namjoon felt his stomach sour just thinking about it. Mates weren’t like a marriage — not exactly. Or rather, they were like a marriage, but moreso, like love stories seem to think marriages are; some kind of melding of the souls. Namjoon knew it involved an intricate ritual and lots of blood and even if he didn’t _understand_ it fully, he knew that stealing someone’s mate was just about the worst thing a vampire could do to another one.

“Do you blame him?” Taehyung asked, but it wasn’t nearly as horrified as Namjoon was at the information. It was more like gentle chastising. Namjoon wondered if he’d heard this story before.

“You know I don’t,” Seokjin said, smiling innocently. All Namjoon saw was teeth on teeth on teeth. Maybe he caught something in Namjoon’s expression, because Seokjin continued as though to placate him. “I stole many people’s mates,” Seokjin informed him with a little shrug. “What was one more? It really wasn’t — like, a hard decision to make, my friend. I was at peak hedonism in those courts; if I wanted something, I took it. I wouldn’t do something like that _now_.” He gestured to himself like it should be obvious that he was a changed vampire.

Namjoon wasn’t sure that absolved him of the deed, but he smiled wanly at him.

“It’s a little funny to me that Jaebeom was brought to you at all, though. I didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep. He was also such a loner, I guess I didn’t notice when he wasn’t around every few years anymore.” He shrugged a shoulder. “You said a fairy brought him in?”

“Yeah, Jackson did,” Namjoon confirmed. “He said a friend of his found him while she was digging for treasure.”

“Treasure?” Taehyung asked, perking up a little in his chair. He’d known about the strangeness of the meadow already, but maybe the treasure added a layer of intrigue.

He’d always been fascinated by puzzles and mysteries; his bookshelf in college had been stocked nearly full with Agatha Christie, Sir Arthor Conan Doyle, Kim Unsu, and Pyun Hyeyoung. He wanted there to be a riddle to the thing, something clever to solving it, and when he heard the word _treasure_ from Namjoon’s mouth, he immediately focused in on the hunt for it.

“Yeah, I don’t have my notes with me or anything,” Namjoon said with a little shrug. “But it was something like that.”

“And we don’t think Jaebeom was the treasure?” Taehyung asked, cocking his head to the side.

Seokjin scoffed, but Namjoon just shook his head. “No, we have no reason to believe Jaebeom’s the treasure.”

“How interesting,” Taehyung said, sitting up properly in the chair for the first time. “I’d love to see those notes.”

Namjoon shrugged. Since Taehyung was involved with a vampire who’d been cited in Jaebeom’s case, there wasn’t any sort of confidentiality that’d prevent him from sharing the information he had with Taehyung. It didn’t seem to be part of the bigger puzzle to Namjoon, not really anyway, but if it got Taehyung to help him figure the whole thing out, well then — maybe it was a good thing. And Namjoon could be focused on being worried about Jaebeom’s ability to find someplace to fit in society and the treasure.

“Sure,” he said. “I can get that to you.”

Taehyung beamed. “Excellent.”

—

Namjoon was very used to progress being more or less a straight line. Sure, there were some vampires who caught onto an awkward turn of phrase or something and took a few steps backwards. And sometimes they got accidentally overworked and took a week or two off to recuperate further. And other times there were vampires who were nearly ready to rejoin their clan and then realized that the clan purposefully put them to sleep to get rid of them. But they made progress and it made sense most of the time.

As far as Namjoon was concerned, Jaebeom wasn’t like that. Jaebeom didn’t seem to be making any kind of significant progress whatsoever.

Sure, he wasn’t groggy anymore and he had most of his memory back, but the actual personal growth parts of the program, the actual decisions about where he should go next, and even the acclimation into more recent society pieces were sorely lacking.

The next session after Jaebeom threatened Namjoon, Youngjae sat off in the corner, typing away on his laptop while Namjoon and Jaebeom sat in their usual spots. There was a long moment at the top of the session where neither of them said anything, and then Namjoon took a deep, nervous breath before planning to launch into a conversation about it, and was interrupted by Jaebeom.

“We have a guest today,” he said, eyes flicking over to Youngjae in the corner. Youngjae, to his credit, wiggled his fingers in a polite wave. If he were another sort of person, perhaps Jaebeom might have made some sort of face at the gesture, but as it was he didn’t do anything. “I suppose that’s warranted.”

“I’m glad you understand,” Namjoon said.

“That’s not what I said,” Jaebeom said, but it wasn’t — Namjoon expected it to be much more cruel. There was a pause where neither of them said anything. Namjoon hadn’t really banked on an apology anyway so he told himself it didn’t matter.

The thought that Namjoon had arrived on independently of this conversation was that perhaps he’d been pushing a little too hard into Jaebeom’s past and the circumstances that lead to his becoming asleep for so long; Seokjin’s recount of how they knew each other was certainly more awful than Namjoon had expected and suspected, not in part because of his behavior, that it might still feel quite fresh to Jaebeom. So he just — moved past it.

He handed Jaebeom a packet. It was not thin. “We should focus on this instead,” he said.

Jaebeom held the packet like he wasn’t sure how to hold a packet. “This?” he asked.

“Yes,” Namjoon said with a sharp little nod. “This is a packet filled with a summary of technological advancements since the time you were made to sleep. Obviously, we weren’t able to fit everything in, there’s just too much to try and fit, but we do do our best to include a wide variety of information, so it’s not all inventions and changes piloted by one culture or on one continent. If there’s information that you’re particularly interested in, please let Youngjae, Jimin, or myself know and we’ll be happy to answer any questions as we’re able to or locate additional materials to expand on your understanding of the subject.”

Jaebeom flipped through the first few pages of the packet almost idly. Namjoon wondered offhand if he’d ever really been expected to _study_ like this before. Jaebeom was old enough and seemed to be familiar enough with higher class living, that if he hadn’t been affiliated with any sort of witches or a church in his youth, it was quite likely most of his schooling had consisted of some Latin, some strategy, and some swordsmanship and very little else.

However, if this was overwhelming to him in any way, Jaebeom did a decent job of hiding it. He looked bemused more than anything.

“Youngjae will grab you a notebook, a lap desk, and some options to write with. Do you have any questions before I launch into the first lesson?” Namjoon asked.

Jaebeom was quiet for a moment, but it wasn’t that quiet he usually seemed to be, where his silence was often a specific commentary on how little he had to say to Namjoon. This quiet felt a little different, like he was trying to find the best way to articulate what he needed to say next. Youngjae set a plain blue spiral notebook, a wooden lap desk with a gray pillowed portion on the underside, and a small pouch containing a couple black pens, a red pen, a couple pencils, and a highlighter in it on the chaise next to him and then retreated back to his desk in the corner before Jaebeom said anything.

“Thank you,” he murmured in Youngjae’s direction before looking back up at Namjoon. “You did this for me?” he asked.

Namjoon hummed. “It’s not that exactly, though, sure. A little. We have a database we continuously update with new information. It started long before I joined the office, there’s always been some overview information about how the world has changed available to vampires who come through here.” He paused, a little embarrassed. “Though, it’s expanded considerably since I started; especially if we get repeated questions about anything I try and add what I can. I don’t want anyone walking back out into the world unprepared for what they’re going to find.” Namjoon considered the thickness of the packet for a moment and threw a grin. “It’s a lot, I know, especially once we get over the hundred year mark, and maybe it’s time to do a wave of editing it down, but I don’t know —”

“The sentiment is nice,” Jaebeom interrupted evenly, still staring at the packet.

“Thank you.”

“Even if the volume is unprecedented,” Jaebeom continued. He made a little face up at Namjoon, who was pretty sure that this was the first non-negative expression he’d gotten from the vampire. “But I suppose I don’t have much else to occupy my time with.”

“No,” Namjoon said, unsure of what to make of him. “You don’t.”

And they opened their packets to the first page and Namjoon began to give a history lesson about the early 1800s. Jaebeom had been around for some of it and commented occasionally that he remembered specific facts either exactly as Namjoon was recounting them or slightly differently. But mostly he took notes and asked Namjoon to expand if he didn’t quite understand the significance of something.

It was almost — strange to see him studiously taking notes. He was quiet, but not in a way that was being weaponized against Namjoon, and so he could appreciate it better. And he could appreciate the little faces he made while he was contemplating something or forming a question.

Namjoon was just about to tell a short aside about Beethoven, when an alarm on Youngjae’s computer chimed for them to wrap up. Jaebeom’s eyes opened wide and he glanced from Youngjae’s computer to Namjoon and back. “I didn’t know they made noise,” he said, sounding a little bit startled.

“They do lots of stuff,” Namjoon assured him. Jaebeom’s perplexed face looked so genuine it almost felt like he was a different person.

“Lots of stuff?” Jaebeom asked, uncertain.

“Yeah; they’re pretty widely used so we’ll do a set of lessons on them when we get there,” Namjoon told him.

He wasn’t sure how he’d expected Jaebeom to look at that information; maybe kind of haughty like he was whenever Namjoon told him anything else or maybe nervous, because the technology was so foreign. But he just looked — curious. Earnestly so almost. He gave a little nod, and he looked as though he wanted to say something else but ended up saying, “I look forward to it,” before Youngjae walked him back to his rooms.

 _Looking forward to it_ was not an emotion Namjoon had ever thought he’d expect to come from Jaebeom, but it — he didn’t think he minded it either.

—

Student Jaebeom over the next few days turned out to ultimately be very different from the other version of Jaebeom that Namjoon had become familiar with.

He asked careful questions and only sometimes made faces when he learned that humans had invented or done something important, and that got to be less and less as time wore on, though Namjoon wasn’t sure if it was because he made a concentrated effort to not do that or because he got used to the idea of humans being part of the society he’d have to rejoin. He wasn’t snarling or angry or cruel, he was just — there. A vampire.

Namjoon had been trying to log the new interactions with Jaebeom accurately. It wasn’t as though a switch had been flipped or anything, not really. He didn’t feel the _opposite_ of how he had before. Just different. Almost like he’d realized how invested Namjoon was in the outcome of this; how much work he was also putting into Jaebeom’s rehabilitation, that he’d stopped trying to push him away as though that would solve the issue. Like he’d given up _fighting_ the fact that Namjoon was intent on helping him.

He wondered a little about what that said about Jaebeom’s past. If there wasn’t a reason specifically that he was like this. It might just have been the whole Seokjin thing, but Seokjin had also described him as a loner even outside of that interaction. Namjoon wondered how many people had disappointed him.

He frowned and opened his files back up.

For the last few days when he _wasn’t_ making significant progress with Jaebeom in their lessons, he’d been diligently sifting through the Cloverdale meadow vampire search. About half the files he’d pulled had been not related at all, and another good percentage had definitely referenced the area in a way that _almost_ made sense, but didn’t quite fit, but that still left him with way too many vampires that had been pulled from the meadow in some shape or form.

For reference, between how long vampires live, how often they fall asleep, and how few people actively hunt for them, there’s about one vampire sleeping on average every ten square miles in populated areas. It goes up a little near fairy, vampire, and witch settlements, maybe one every six square miles or so, and there were certainly occasions where three or four vampires had fallen asleep in the same place (usually with help from a witch) that skewed the numbers a little one way or the other in certain areas.

However, this was well outside of anything like that. The meadow outside of Cloverdale was about a mile square for all intents and purposes, and in the files Namjoon had access to he’d discovered that no less than eleven vampires had been pulled from there in the last fifty years. He had records going back further that he could look into, but they hadn’t been digitized just yet.

It — eleven was a lot.

It was one thing to compile the information with a looming sense of dread, it was quite another to finish the exercise and sit with the information he’d found. Eleven. There were almost certainly _laws_ against something like that; something so purposeful and concentrated. Namjoon felt sick and horrified just thinking about it.

He printed the sheet he’d been cataloging them in, dashed a mostly scrubbed version of it off to Taehyung in case he could help, and then set about composing a much more formal and thorough letter to his boss. Namjoon’s rehabilitation clinic was one of six spread across the country and he mostly checked in with his boss quarterly to discuss things like trends and budgets, and ran the place more or less autonomously the rest of the time, but this — this felt so much bigger than anything else they’d talked about and it was that much harder to articulate because of it.

Someone had slept and buried _lots_ of vampires outside Cloverdale and Namjoon was almost definitely going to have to do something about it.

—

“I’ll walk you back in a minute,” Namjoon said, pulling his laptop onto his lap. “I just want to check to see if I have any messages first.” He’d sort of been hoping for a response from Taehyung.

Jaebeom nodded a little; he understood that Namjoon could do that with his computer even if he wasn’t clear on the _how_ just yet. Apparently Jimin had been teaching him how to text now that he was making clear, confident progress. He liked using a stylus more than he liked using his fingers, but Jimin had reported he was pretty good at it, even if abbreviations went right over his head.

It had been about a week and a half since they’d started doing the history lessons and while things weren’t exactly easy or even really _friendly_ between the two of them, they’d fallen into sort of a balance of mutual respect. Namjoon almost found himself looking forward to their lessons sometimes, something he wasn’t sure he’d have ever been able to say even two weeks ago. They argued once in a while, but it was nothing like the unhelpful arguments they’d had at the beginning. The last argument had been Jaebeom’s insistence that vampires had had a technology long before the human Namjoon cited as having discovered it, which was probably fair all things considered, but he needn’t have been quite so heated about it either.

Namjoon tapped away at his computer, opening both his professional and personal emails in case Taehyung had sent it to the wrong one. Jaebeom stood from his spot where he always sat so rigidly on the chaise and stretched a little, something casual Namjoon wouldn’t have ever imagined he’d do in his presence just a week or so ago. Maybe Jimin had been teaching him about casual norms as well or something. Regardless, Namjoon was treated to the thinnest slice of toned stomach peeking from between the hem of his sweatshirt and waistband of his pants and he had to deliberately tear his eyes away and back to his laptop.

He didn’t — he wasn’t sure why specifically it had felt so much like intruding. Maybe because he’d been so formal. He wasn’t sure why he could feel himself blushing either. It had just been a stomach — he’d seen Jimin’s stomach a thousand times and never reacted like this. Though, to be fair, so had most of the city by now.

But he found himself thinking about it, even as he refreshed his emails and confirmed there was nothing new waiting for him, even as he closed his laptop again, and he —

Jaebeom had picked up a paper on his desk and was wrinkling it with how tightly he was holding it. His expression was a severe frown.

“What is it?” Namjoon asked him.

“What — what is this list of?” Jaebeom asked. He sounded almost like he’d seen a ghost or something and there’s a short moment where Namjoon wasn’t sure what he was talking about. He doesn’t remember keeping a list of anything on his desk and certainly not of something that would make Jaebeom this upset.

And then it dawned on him.

“The Cloverdale vampires,” Namjoon said.

“The what?” asked Jaebeom, and there’s something odd in his voice. Something like he was choking back a sob or like he was struggling to wrap his mind around it. The paper crinkled a little bit more in his grasp.

“The — it’s a list of all the vampires we’ve had come through here from the Cloverdale meadow.”

“They’re — they’re all —” Jaebeom said, still staring at the list.

“They’re alive and awake, now, though,” Namjoon said. He wasn’t sure if he needed to figure out how to comfort Jaebeom or if he needed something else.

Jaebeom looked up and it was — Namjoon wasn’t sure he had ever seen so much _expression_ in one place. Jaebeom looked like he was about to sob, but there wasn’t something specifically and decidedly happy about it as well. Like he’d suddenly been given hope he didn’t know he had any longer. “I thought they’d —” there’s a sniffle that Namjoon’s sure he’ll find decidedly undignified later, “— I thought they’d all been killed, I didn’t — I wasn’t looking for them that day I disappeared, it was just that they — I thought they’d _died_ Namjoon.”

“I know,” Namjoon said, trying not to sound overly panicked. He stood and not sure how to comfort him exactly he patted awkwardly at Jaebeom’s arm, desperately trying to remember anything he could about what he might have once known about Regency era appropriate social contact. Surely the elbow would be fine and not too untoward? “They’re okay, though. They’re okay, I can get you in contact with most of them even, they — were they your clan or something? I didn’t think you’d —”

Jaebeom shook his head. “Oh, not really. I never really — that part was true, I didn’t really have a clan conventionally. But they — they’d been in the same courts as me, and we sort of moved together and we weren’t _close_ , but I’d felt so paranoid and hunted those last few years, and it —”

He sniffled again and Namjoon went fishing in his desk to give him some tissues.

“Does everyone — I’m sorry to ask this, but is there — I’ve been trying to sort out how exactly this happened, and I know you said you were all in the same courts, but that probably would have been true for the vast majority of the vampires in the area at the time. Is there any kind of pattern to them besides that that you can think of?” Namjoon asked, patting at his elbow again.

Jaebeom shook his head. “Not really, but I’ll think about it some more.”

“Okay, there’s almost —” he paused to frown and figure out how he wanted to word it exactly, hand sat gently on his elbow. “There’s almost definitely going to be a pattern of some kind. _Especially_ since you know everyone, it’s — someone or a set of someones did this on purpose.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Jaebeom said with a little nod, overlong hair flopping into his face. He’d looked so regal when they first met and now he just looked — well, a little shaggy around the edges, really. So much softer than he’d once been. He rubbed at his nose and grabbed another tissue.

“Which means,” Namjoon continued, not wanting to keep going but knowing he had to, “that you were almost definitely targeted in some way.” He paused and pressed his lips together. “I know that you either didn’t want to talk about it or didn’t remember anything else from when you were slept, and you don’t have to tell me now if it’s the case, but if you _do_ remember anything else and want to share it might be important, you know?”

Jaebeom shook his head. “There’s nothing else; I was just mad and didn’t want to answer any more of your questions.”

“Okay,” Namjoon said with a nod. He almost believed him.

—

_I recognized almost all of those names and Seokjin confirmed_

The message from Taehyung sat in his phone and Namjoon watched, not sure why he felt dread more than anything else, as Taehyung kept typing.

_He’s says he either dated them or that there were rumors that he dated them back in the day_

There was a pause while he typed some more. Namjoon ate a bit of his dinner, another couple forkfuls of the slightly too wet rice he’d made. Still tasted fine though, especially once he dumped a bunch of soy sauce on it.

_Does that help?_

_Unfortunately, yes_ , Namjoon typed.

Taehyung sent him a sad face.

It felt accurate.

He’d gotten a go ahead and a budget to continue the investigation in an email from his boss right at the end of the day.

Namjoon texted Jackson, hoping absently he wasn’t in the middle of anything: _Call me when you get a chance; I’m going to need you to go looking for something_

—

“So,” Namjoon said, digging the clipboard into his knees again. They had a little bit of time for this, so he might as well use it. They were back in their usual spots, Jaebeom sat primly on the chaise in front of him, lap desk and notebook on his lap. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

Namjoon had practiced over and over again how he was going to say this, but nothing had sounded quite right. He pressed his lips together and wished that he’d tried a bit harder.

Jaebeom’s expression wasn’t so much upset as it was bemused. “Okay,” he said, not sure where he was going with this.

“I know Seokjin,” Namjoon said, focusing decidedly on the fake plant on the shelf above Jaebeom. “And not like, I know _of_ him, because I knew _of_ him before he ever came through here, but I know him like we’re … well, it’s hard to be friends with Seokjin, but we know each other quite well.” Namjoon didn’t look away from the plant. “His partner’s my best friend,” he added, almost like an excuse.

“Oh,” Jaebeom said, and his voice had so much _something_ in it that it made Namjoon glance down at him. “That’s —”

“I know that you didn’t much care for him, but I went to visit him to talk about you before we’d really hashed out your _no clan to join_ thing; I should’ve told you earlier, but we —”

“Our communication could’ve used some work at the beginning,” Jaebeom said with a little nod. “I understand why you didn’t.”

The words _our communication_ resonated in Namjoon’s mind. He pressed his lips together. “You’re — I know he’s a sore spot for you, and I know what he —”

Jaebeom’s eyebrows shot up. “He told you what he did?” he asked.

Namjoon nodded. “He’s — well, you probably know how he is, more or less. He told me he stole your mate accidentally.”

Jaebeom let out a dry little laugh. “Accidentally _is_ probably the word for it,” he said.

“Really? I figured he was being coy.”

“No, he — Mark and I were in the process of breaking up, really, though I was ignoring that more or less. I figured he was going off to date Yoongi because they’d been spending a lot of time together, even though Yoongi was with Seokjin. Seokjin would have been fine with that, though, he’s never been the possessive type. I never asked for the gory details, but Seokjin ended up with both of them for a while and then just Mark.” Jaebeom sighed and sat back against the back of the chaise.

“I’m sorry to bring it up,” Namjoon told him. “Genuinely.”

Jaebeom shook his head. “It’s ancient history, right?”

“Sure,” Namjoon agreed. “But not to you.”

“No.” Jaebeom looked a little sad, but not angry or anything. Apparently they’d evolved past the angry stage; Namjoon wasn’t sure how he’d missed it. “No, you’re right, not to me. Not really anyway.” He paused to look up at Namjoon and Namjoon wished for a moment that he had a little bit of _something_ in him so that he could parse out what exactly that expression was supposed to mean.

“I need to ask you something,” Namjoon said instead. “Not about that _exactly_ , but kind of.”

“Ask me something?” Jaebeom repeated.

“Yeah. I — talked to Taehyung, Seokjin’s partner, and he’s seen that list of vampires we pulled out of the meadow. He’s — pretty sure that most, if not all, of the vampires on that list were associated in some way with Seokjin. Either that he was dating them or rumored to date them.”

Jaebeom thought for a moment, twisting the cuff of his sweatshirt in his hands. “I think you might be right.”

“Including you?” Namjoon asked, unable to help himself.

“Yeah,” Jaebeom said with a little little laugh. “You know him, he’s hard to say no to.”

Namjoon laughed; that was true. “Is that — do you think that could be the pattern we’re looking for?”

Jaebeom tilted his head a little, considering. “I mean, the list didn’t have Mark or Yoongi on it, but it probably did account for everyone else in the court that he dated across those twenty years or so. That’s so — I mean, it was lots of people that Seokjin dated, so I never really thought about it as a _group_ , really. Plus, they kept — well, disappearing, though we thought at the time that they were being hunted down.” He paused and frowned a little more, “Which, I guess they were, though not quite to the extent that we thought they had been. There’s a few others who disappeared, in that time, too, but we — well, we found their bodies so we knew they were actually staked, and just figured — “ He made a little hand movement.

“Staked?” Namjoon asked, not following.

Jaebeom gave a wry little smile and touched his fingertips to the left of his chest, where his heart would be. “It was _the_ way to kill vampires for a good hundred years back then; there’s probably some other trend now?”

“Oh,” Namjoon said, a little embarrassed that he hadn’t put two and two together. “Yeah, uh, it’s not as rampant or anything, but apparently holy water capsules are the go to lately — like in pill form?”

Jaebeom wrinkled his nose. “Gruesome.”

Namjoon grimaced, “Yeah, sorry.”

He pushed his hair off his face. He hadn’t gotten it cut yet and it had been long when he first got here. “It’s not like it’s your fault — you don’t seem like the sort of human who would do something like that.”

“No?” Namjoon asked. He found himself smiling softly at the notion that Jaebeom would think that of him. “I doubt you’ve always felt that way.” They’d come so far in just a few weeks.

Jaebeom shook his head. “I never thought you were that sort of human, I was just — angry and too used to being lonely for my own good.” He gave a wry sort of smile and met Namjoon’s eyes for a moment before looking away. There was something distinctly _present_ in his gaze, and Namjoon’s breath caught in his throat at it just a _little_ bit. “You know, I actually —”

The door to Namjoon’s office banged open. Youngjae stood in the door frame, ever so slightly out of breath, a wide grin on his face, a stack of documents, his laptop, and a notebook balanced on a medium sized plastic box beneath one arm, and his car keys waving in his other hand.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Ready?” Jaebeom asked, glancing from Youngjae to Namjoon and back. “Ready for what?”

“Field trip,” Youngjae said.

“If you want to — I asked Jackson to methodically dig up the rest of that meadow to see if there’s not other vampires in there,” Namjoon explained. “I understand completely if you don’t want to go, though, it might be nothing or it might be traumatic, or —”

“I want to go,” Jaebeom said, with a decisive little nod. “I don’t — listen, I can always go stand some ways away and clear my head if I need to, right?”

“Of course,” Namjoon said while Youngjae made a face.

“Then I have to,” he said. He glanced towards Youngjae and then back. “Are, do we walk or is there some kind of carriage, or —”

Youngjae’s grin was wicked. “Oh, this will be fun.”

—

Jaebeom spent the car ride both gripping the seat and doorframe very, very tightly and delightedly staring out the window with his mouth slightly agape. Namjoon had acquiesced the front seat and was sat in the back seat, tapping through the laptop Youngjae had grabbed on his way out. Finding the pattern had been one thing, figuring out who the culprit might be was going to be something different altogether.

“Do we have a guess?” Youngjae asked as he whipped around a corner.

Namjoon shook his head and then realized he probably couldn’t be seen and said, “No, not yet, that’s part of what I’m trying to suss out. It’s — maybe some kind of fairy, just because of the location, but it’s — Jaebeom, do you have any guesses?”

“Guesses?” Jaebeom asked, slightly too loudly as he gaped at a particularly large neon sign.

“About who might have been sleeping you and the others,” Namjoon clarified, trying not to show his delight at Jaebeom’s fascination. “I’m looking for patterns, but maybe you heard something back in the day.”

“No,” Jaebeom said, shaking his head. “No, I mean, there were a couple fairies around in the court, but no one who seemed, like, evil or particularly distinct even. Most of them were either court staff or in-house dignitaries or council — I never mixed much with that crowd, I was right at the edges of the courtesan group, so I never even got much deference.” He chuckled.

“No one you can remember Seokjin being rude to or maybe rejecting?” Namjoon prodded. “If you were all involved with him in some way, it stands to reason that he’d be the _cause_ in some way.”

He shook his head. “No, I mean — he wasn’t always particularly polite to servants, so maybe he went too far or something once? We really weren’t involved for long, but I never caught the feeling that anyone specific loathed him enough to target him in any way.” He thought for a moment as Youngjae careened around a corner and they passed the _Welcome to Cloverdale_ sign, complete with its several hundred individually painted leaves. “Don’t rule that out on my account, though, there’s every chance that I’m just oblivious.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Namjoon said with a little laugh.

—

The meadow was unassuming and very little else, but even Namjoon could feel the shiver of _something_ as they approached it from where Youngjae had parked his car. The sun was starting to set as they’d parked, but they still fished a large black umbrella out of the trunk to make things as comfortable as possible for Jaebeom. The meadow was nearly flat and much longer than it was wide, not lush with flowers like Jaebeom had described it, but little more than an overgrown sort of prairie space of mostly clover, with little patches of wild-flowers thrown in at random. Jackson was digging near the far end, a small woman with bright blue hair, a much older woman sat on some sort of cushion, and a thin, pale man holding an umbrella stood around to watch him work.

Jaebeom was very quiet as they approached, and it was only when they got within a hundred feet or so that he swore quietly under his breath at the sight of them.

“Do you know him?” Youngjae asked, an eyebrow raising. He had taken it upon himself to carry the plastic container the entire way and was panting just a little bit.

Jaebeom nodded. “It’s —”

“Jaebeom?” called the thin man. A wide grin stretched across his face and Namjoon noted that he was probably the one of the least threatening vampires he’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. His cheeks were quite gaunt and he looked a little bit extra dead around the eyes, but he seemed cheerful enough, hair sticking up a little at the top of his head.

“Yoongi!” Jaebeom exclaimed as they approached. They clasped their hands together eagerly, umbrellas held a bit awkwardly in their other hands. “It’s been a long time.”

Yoongi smiled good-naturedly. “Has it?” he asked. His voice was rather raspy, likely from disuse. “It feels like I saw you about a week ago, all told.” He glanced at the outfit of sweats that Jaebeom had chosen as his uniform since waking up a few weeks ago, “Though, I suppose some things _have_ changed.”

“Do you need blood?” Youngjae asked, dropping his box unceremoniously onto the ground.

“No,” he waved a hand like they shouldn’t bother. “Wheein? Wheein gave me some sheep’s blood leftover from the scrying they did to find me. It was kind of gross, but it’ll do the trick for a little while.” He glanced from Youngjae to Namjoon and back, his eyebrows raising, “Oh, I expected more fairies.”

“We’re —” Namjoon started.

“They run a rehabilitation facility,” Jaebeom interrupted. He looked weirdly proud almost; Namjoon was almost positive that it wasn’t an expression he’d seen on his face before. He was pretty sure he liked it, even if it was at odds with the face piercing and his fangs and the red around his eyes. “For vampires when they wake up.”

Yoongi glanced at Namjoon again, expression just a little bemused. “Well, I expect I’ll be needing your services then.”

“Of course,” Namjoon said with a little nod.

“Did they dig you out of there?” Youngjae asked, pointing at the hole Jackson was in.

“Oh,” Yoongi said, turning back to where the fairies were. “No, that’s — I came from over there somewhere,” he said, pointing off to the left.

“So, this is …” Jaebeom started, before trailing off.

“Someone else,” Yoongi said.

“Mark?” Youngjae asked, voicing exactly what Namjoon had been silently willing him not to.

Jaebeom looked from Youngjae to Namjoon and then towards the hole Jackson was standing in, eyebrows raised. “Oh,” he said. “Do you think so?”

“I think it’s possible,” Namjoon said.

He watched Jaebeom’s reaction very, very carefully, not sure what response he was hoping for. He didn’t think it was indifference, he wasn’t sure he could imagine indifference. But all there was was a quiet sort of expectation, that Namjoon wouldn’t _quite_ have called hope — though someone might have called him a fool for that.

There was a beat where he let himself just watch the vampire, take in his pretty profile for a moment, and kick himself for getting so hung up on him so quickly. He wasn’t sure if he could articulate how it happened, but he’d known for a while that it was there.

Knew that this was the least he could do for him.

“Shall we?” Namjoon asked, taking the first few steps towards the hole.

“Oh,” Jaebeom said, and it was almost like he hadn’t been paying attention. “Yes.”

As they approached, it became more and more obvious that Jackson was covered in a very thin but very complete layer of grime on every surface of his body. He was holding a shovel and had lost his shirt at some point, so the sweat and dirt on his back nearly glistened over his muscles in low light of sunset. Wheein looked positively delighted. The older woman sat next to her did as well.

“Hi!” Wheein said brightly, dimples high in her cheeks. “We’re working on the last.”

“The last?” Namjoon asked, returning Jackson’s exhausted, half-hearted wave. “We know that for sure?”

“Yeah, that’s all that came up from Gram’s ritual,” Wheein said, nodding in the older woman’s direction. “Shouldn’t be anything not _from_ the meadow bigger than a breadbox left in the meadow, so unless there’s someone, you know,” she made a face, “chopped into pieces or something in here, this is it.”

“Thirteen,” Namjoon observed.

Wheein’s eyebrows shot up. “So it is fairy magic, then.”

“You think so?” Jaebeom asked, half-watching Jackson dig with some fascination.

“Yeah, it’s — so, you’re not from around now, so you wouldn’t know this probably,” Wheein said, tucking a bit of blue hair behind a pointed ear as she considered. “But humans in particular treat thirteen as a sort of bad luck number, but that’s mostly because fairies use it in a lot of luck and persuasion spells. If you’ve ever been duped big time by a fairy, there’s a good chance they used thirteen of something to do so. If you’ve ever been rendered completely useless by a fairy — there’s a good chance they took thirteen of something of yours to do so.”

“So, thirteen lovers —” Namjoon started.

“Seokjin,” Jaebeom said quietly. “They were going after Seokjin. That’s — does that make any sense though, that they just slept him, too, though?”

“Well that’s — that’s not quite true, actually,” Namjoon said, patting at his pockets for his cell phone. Maybe he’d left it with Youngjae. “Seokjin was found in a coffin in someone’s attic.”

“But that’s — we don’t use coffins in anything,” Wheein said, shaking her head.

“No, that’s strictly vampires, and like — spirits and other properly undead things only,” Namjoon said, still patting. “Youngjae!” he yelled.

He trotted over, hair flopping a little. “Yes boss?”

“Do you have my cell phone?”

Youngjae fished the phone out of the pocket of his jacket before jogging back to where he’d been chatting with Yoongi.

“So, what does that mean?” Wheein asked. “That he avoided whatever the fairy was trying to catch him with by doing his own magic?”

“Probably,” Namjoon said with a little nod, opening his phone to call Seokjin. “We never actually had to investigate his situation, because he had most of his cognition left.” His phone started ringing and he put it on speaker. “But it seemed pretty cut and dry, you know. He had cursed objects on him, so they put him to sleep and it —”

“Hello?” Seokjin’s voice sounded oddly tinny on the speakerphone, especially out here in the middle of the meadow.

“Hey, how did you fall asleep?” Namjoon asked, gesturing wildly at Youngjae to come back and take notes.

There was a pause where the air seemed very still and quiet except for the sound of Jackson digging. “Like, last night, or?”

“No, in the coffin that ended up in Taehyung’s attic. How did you get there?”

“Oh! Well, I put myself there.”

“You put yourself there?” Namjoon repeated. Youngjae and Yoongi jogged to a stop beside him, Yoongi’s umbrella held aloft over them.

“Yeah, I was being stalked more or less by this crazed cleric fairy. I haven’t told you this story?”

“I don’t think so, please continue.”

“Well, he — he’d had a crush on me for awhile, but I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to whatever fairy perfume was all the rage in the fairy church back in the day, and I just couldn’t stand to be around him even if he was kind of sexy in like a ruin my life sort of way. And most of my friends had disappeared in the last few years, so I was quite alone, and it — well, I knew a witch who I could get some objects from, and I picked a spot, and put myself to sleep. Worked a little better than I’d figured, I’d hoped for 10 years and got more like a hundred and eighty, so it — I’m wondering if the objects didn’t multiply instead of add into each other, but there wasn’t anyone around to ask.”

Namjoon flicked his eyes up to Youngjae, who nodded to confirm that he’d gotten all that.

“Is that all you needed?” Seokjin asked. And then, “What’s happening, did I help?”

“I think so; I’ll call and explain later,” Namjoon said, hanging up on him.

“We were just pawns,” Jaebeom said, he sounded a little bit hollow as he said it, but not overly surprised either.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” Yoongi said quietly. He pushed his bangs off of his forehead.

“No, but it’s — it’s still a lot,” Jaebeom said, just as quiet.

“Are you okay?” Namjoon asked him. Quiet. Careful.

Jaebeom locked eyes with Namjoon and didn’t say anything, just bopped his umbrella into his shoulder.

The sounds of digging turned suddenly from the steady, rhythmic noise of shovel on dirt, to something much more wooden and hollow sounding.

“Jackpot,” he yelled as the last of the sun set behind the horizon. Everything had gone that bright gray of new twilight. “Someone else finish digging this fucker out of here.”

—

Youngjae good-naturedly finished scraping the dirt off of the poorly made coffin they pulled from the ground and helped Jaebeom, Jackson, and Namjoon maneuver it out of the ground and onto the grass.

The lid could be taken away in pieces, though, so they didn’t need to use any of the prying equipment that Youngjae had brought with him. And amidst the dirt and rock and bits of dust in the coffin, was the last vampire from the meadow outside of Cloverdale: Mark Tuan.

Namjoon had never been present for the unearthing of a vampire; they always came into his office after being pulled from the earth or out of the cave or abandoned building or whatever other place one could find a sleeping vampire. He’d never watched before as the sleep fell off of them and they reanimated slowly, like a thing reawakening from death. And he’d never seen them open their eyes like they’d half forgotten how and seen that deep-deep red color spread across their eyesockets like blood pooling behind them.

Mark Tuan coughed once, twice, and pushed Youngjae’s arm away when he offered it, something fearsome in the set of his jaw and the glint of his fangs as he got his bearings. He looked tired, as was the pattern for the Cloverdale vampires, tired but mostly there, and he was fine more or less after they gave him a half hour to wake up properly.

Namjoon kept his distance while Youngjae got him some water and a blood packet, letting Jaebeom and Yoongi mill quietly next to them. Jackson, Wheein, and her grandmother made their way through the group to say their goodbyes, and ask if they needed any help getting the vampires back to the institute, before returning back to the town.

And it should’ve felt better to solve the thing, Namjoon was pretty sure, but he’d gotten himself all wrapped up in the wrong pieces of it. Seeing Jaebeom smile and crack a joke was nice, though, even if from afar. It was hard to think of anything besides the paperwork as he waited for Mark to be strong enough to make it to their car.

Bittersweet, then, he decided with the smallest of smiles. He could deal with that fine.

—

“Namjoon,” Jaebeom called.

He’d started down the hallway from the rooms, back towards his office to file the necessary paperwork and intake forms, and send an email to his boss before heading out for the night. Jimin and Youngjae could finish getting them set up with their rooms, the rest could keep for the morning.

But Namjoon paused anyway and waited for Jaebeom to catch up with him.

“Thank you,” he said. It felt so genuine and _meant_ that Namjoon wasn’t sure how to react.

“Of course, just part of the job,” Namjoon answered, even though that wasn’t strictly true.

“Sure,” Jaebeom said, smiling softly like he didn’t believe him for a minute. And then he lingered for a moment, like he wanted to ask something, but wasn’t sure how. “Do you think I’m ready to be released?” he asked finally, smile somehow both sweet and sharp.

“Oh!” Namjoon said, surprised. He hadn’t expected that at all. “I suppose you could be, though if you’re wanting to get a place with Mark or something, he won’t be ready to leave for quite some time. At least a week or two even if he gets his feet under him really quickly.”

Jaebeom laughed softly, looking down for a moment before meeting his eyes. “No, I — you know, Mark and I broke up a while ago, it might — well, it would probably be quite awkward to live together, I think.”

“Oh,” Namjoon said, forehead wrinkling. “Then where —”

“Well,” he said, pressing his lips together — a habit Namjoon was pretty sure he’d gotten from him. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t take me home with you.” Namjoon must have been quiet from shock for too long, because he scrambled to add, “If I’ve read this correctly, of course, I — maybe I’ve completely overstepped and I should just —”

“No!” Namjoon managed, trying to process more quickly than the shock was letting him. “No, you haven’t overstepped, you — yeah.”

“Yeah?” Jaebeom asked. His smile almost looked like he was teasing him.

“Yeah,” Namjoon echoed, not sure how to tamp down all the _joy_ he was feeling to respond like a regular person.

“Okay,” Jaebeom said with a little nod. “You know, you’ll have to invite me in.”

“I can do that.”

—

Three months later and Jaebeom was half-reclining on the chaise, reading languidly through Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Apparently the prim seating position from before had been due more to him trying to be polite and formal with Namjoon due to him being in a position of power and also a stranger and _not_ in fact due to a particular need to sit bolt upright all of the time.

He quite seemed to like sitting nearly horizontal, even if it eventually made him complain about his neck hurting or caused Jimin or Youngjae to tease him about falling right back asleep again.

He’d wandered in a few minutes ago to pick Namjoon up from work, and as he wasn’t ready just yet had made himself casually at home. The problem with that was that Namjoon found him so distracting, hair in that artful tousle thing that so many of the supernatural beings seemed to be able to construct absentmindedly, unselfconsciously existing in the space, that it became very hard to finish up the report he was writing.

Jaebeom looked up at him, almost as though he’d felt Namjoon looking at him, and made a face. “Report nearly finished?” he asked.

Namjoon did what he could to hide that he was flustered. “Nearly!”

“Okay, take your time,” Jaebeom said. And then, “What was that place you were going to take me for dinner?”

“The Thai place?” Namjoon asked.

“Thai,” Jaebeom repeated, like he was trying the word out. “How interesting.”

“I think you’ll like it,” Namjoon said. Jaebeom just hummed, already back to reading his book.

Namjoon made the herculean effort to make himself focus on his work and not look at the pretty line of Jaebeom’s nose, or the piercing he refused to take out of his cheek, or the pouty little frown his mouth dropped into as he read.

It had been easy like this for a little while now, the feeling as though they were just at the precipice of something. Jaebeom spent his afternoons working part time at the museum and his morning exploring the town he’d so emphatically claimed he wouldn’t like in dribs and drabs. Namjoon watched him and tried not to _want_ too much all at the same time. Tried not to focus on every little casual contact, tried not to —

He knew these things took time and he knew Jaebeom cared about him.

He typed his closing argument carefully, editing as he went to choose the words correctly.

It would have to be enough.

“Finished,” he announced, closing his laptop with a click. Jaebeom held up a finger, trying to hurriedly finish the page he was on. “You can bring that with you, you know,” Namjoon told him.

“I like it here, it’s something for me to do while I wait,” Jaebeom said, finger still held aloft.

“You know, you don’t have to wait for me,” Namjoon said. He straightened his desk a bit for something to do with his hands. Collected his post-it doodles to crumple into the trash.

“I don’t mind waiting,” Jaebeom said, smiling almost cheekily as he closed his book and stood to leave.

Namjoon frowned at him, sure he was alluding to something. “What do you mean?” he asked as he pulled his jacket on.

“Just that I’m very patient,” he said with a little shrug. He wouldn’t have done that just a few months ago, he must have picked that up from Namjoon or maybe Youngjae. “I can wait forever.”

“Wait?” Namjoon asked, trying to coax more from him.

“Wait,” Jaebeom confirmed. Soft, serious. And maybe he’d been moving closer the whole time, or maybe he’d moved closer all at once while Namjoon blinked, but suddenly Namjoon became very aware of just how close they were together and just how little air there was in the office, and he —

Part of him wanted to panic, to scramble backwards from proximity and to tell himself that it was too soon and that it was inappropriate and impolite and — but the rest of him was looking at the face Jaebeom was making, careful, close. And the rest of him leaned down, just a little bit, to kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> upside down smiley face emoji


End file.
